Travelin' Soldier
by Simple Heart
Summary: His name was Jim Kirk and he was unlike anyone Leah had known before.' Kirk's a boy heading off for war, Leah's the girl waiting for him to come home. AU! girl!McCoy/Kirk


Title: Travelin' Soldier  
Notes: Beta'd by Lady Kiren and samtheburrito.  
Pairing: girl!McCoy/Kirk  
Rating: PG  
Diclaimer: I don't own Star Trek it's characters or the song. I only own the plot idea.  
Summary: His name was Jim Kirk and he was unlike anyone Leah had known before.

This fic was inspired by the song Travelin' Soldier by the Dixie Chicks. I did make cover art for it, here's the link: .com/albums/nn61/simple-heart5115/?action=view¤t;=

Leah noticed him as she made the usual round of her tables. It was a Wednesday and one of the slowest days of the work week so most of them were empty save for a booth against the window. The boy didn't look a day over 18 and the green army uniform and unruly blonde hair only accentuated that fact.

Leah walked over with a smile, pulling out her pad.

"What can I getcha?"

The mystery customer looked up, and Leah was momentarily taken back by his vibrant blue eyes. He lowered his gaze to the table again and picked at his sleeves.

"What's wrong?" Leah asked, wincing a little at the sound of her voice. She always sounded too young like she was sixteen not nineteen and she'd always hated it.

He looked up again, and she felt a pang in her chest. He looked so lost; the sharp blue eyes seemed to reach into the furthest parts of her and as pathetic as it sounded she knew then and there she'd do anything he asked.

"Would you mind sitting down and talking to me? I'm feeling a little low."

Before she knew it Leah was nodding, "I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go."

She learned a lot that afternoon on the pier.

His name was Jim Kirk and he was unlike anyone Leah had known before. He was exactly the boy her father had told her to be wary of, but he had that air of a hurt puppy and she couldn't resist the challenge of at least patching him up.

They sat there together underneath the mid afternoon sun as she listened to him. Jim explained that he wanted to become a great officer like his father and the only way to do that was to face his future in the Army. She learned he wasn't afraid of dying, he was afraid that no one would miss him when he was gone. Leah had to point out that he might not die, and she listened to his deep flowing laugh. With his luck, he explained, it was probably a sure thing. She'd glared and he'd laughed again calling her 'bowsy' and then as if explanation flicked the blue bow she'd tied around her ponytail that morning.

Jim seemed like a womanizer, but she could see underneath to why exactly he wasn't with any of those women and why he was here now spilling his guts to a complete stranger. Insecurity floated around Jim's bold blue eyes every time he let something loose, until he'd let it all out. He'd told her thanks and stood up gently pulling her to her feet too. He let his hand linger a little too long and indecision made his mouth turn down in a frown.

"I bet you've already got a boyfriend, but I don't care. I've got no one else to send a letter to. Do you mind If I send one back here too you?"

Leah smiled reaching out a hand and poked the side of his mouth until Jim stopped frowning.

"That is one of the worst pick up lines I've ever heard," she spoke earning a half-grin," But it just so happens I don't and I'll be here waiting for them."

Jim boarded the bus ten minutes later with one final glance over his shoulder and a lopsided smile.

The letters came once a month or so, first from an army camp in California then Vietnam. He told her all his fears and worries, and how just maybe she'd been the best thing that had ever happened to him. He told her when he came back he had a surprise planned for just her, and with Jim that probably meant a lot of trouble.

The breath caught in her throat when she read the line _'It's getting kinda rough over here._

He was quick to reassure her,_ 'but I think of that day sitting down on the pier I close my eyes and see you're pretty smile. Don't worry but I might not be able to write for awhile.'_

That was Jim's last letter.

The months stretched on without correspondence and some dark nights she would flash back to his words, "With my luck dying is probably a sure thing." On those occasions she would take out the box she kept under her bed full of his letters, and run her fingers over his messy scrawl and remember his laugh. Then is she was lucky she'd fall into a dreamless sleep.

Four months later a letter finally came, except it wasn't alone. The man stood somberly and handed her the letter, only then did she learn that Jim had put her down as his next of kin. Her parents couldn't understand why she was upset over a boy she barely knew, and actually reprimanded her for even talking to him in the first place. Leah cried herself to sleep that night clutching the box full of Jim's empty promises.

Two weeks later she got a package and a letter explaining that it was expressed in Jim's wishes that she receive this box if he were to be listed as MIA or KIA. Leah's knees hit the floor hard enough to bruise. Her mother found her curled up on the cold laminate sobbing and clutching a little blue velvet box, but she never told her parents about the silver ring inside.

Weeks turned to months and months to a year. Leah completed her first two years in nursing school, and Jim was still listed as MIA. Her father had finally had enough of her moping, he told Leah she had to get married. She was a southern belle and needed a man. Leah felt that her father was to stuck in his old beliefs, and she knew there would only be one man that she would ever completely belong to, but she didn't tell her father either of these things.

She didn't have much choice, and Leah found herself with a ring that wasn't Jim's on her finger and a man that wasn't Jim. Leah continued school, cleaned house, and cooked, but didn't do much else. Her new husband couldn't figure out why she agreed to sex but wouldn't sleep in the same bed as him.

The marriage lasted four years before the lack of love on her part and lack of commitment on his broke them up. Divorce was not something her family was willing to take as the stuck up prissies that they were, so she backed up a few clothes, toiletries, Jim's letters and ring and moved.

San Francisco weather was nice, and she easily got a new job as a nurse at one of the local hospitals. Everyone loved her, though some of the doctors loved her a little too much, and after the third man hit on her Leah got in the habit of wearing Jim's ring as a deterrent.

On the anniversary of her and Jim's fateful meeting she would always go down to the local pier and listen to the waves and watch the mist as it enveloped the Golden Gate Bridge. On the anniversary of Jim's official listing as MIA, which might as well be KIA, she would lock herself in her apartment with a bottle of cheap wine and stare at his ring until the blurry morning light greeted another day without him.

Ten years after the diner, Leah was twenty-nine and one of the best nurses in her field. Yet no one could understand why she gave strangers the cold shoulder, and grumbled as she worked, though she was always gentle with the patients. Most of the staff whispered it must have been a bad break up that had made such a beautiful woman so bitter. Divorce and the loss of something you only had for that one spectacular second did tend to do that to you, Leah agreed.

It was a Thursday early shift, one Leah least and most favorite days. On one hand she'd just finished a double shift, on the other she had thirty-six hours of freedom.

She was cleaning up her station when she felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned to see Jenna, a fellow nurse and her closest thing to a best friend. Coincidentally she was also the only person Leah had ever told about Jim, of course that had only been after a bottle of vodka while she tried to coax Jenna through a bad break-up.

"There's a man out front that's just standing there and looking around. I think something might be wrong with him, like a brain injury. You need to go check him out." Jenna told her.

"Dammit Jenna I'm nurse not a doctor. I can't diagnose him." Leah replied, already turning back to her work.

Jenna had other plans as she tightly gripped Leah's shoulders forcefully turned her around and shoved her toward the front. Leah grumbled but complied anyway, but not before she threw a glare over her shoulder.

She huffed as she entered the main lobby area, hurriedly scanning the people for a lost looking old man. What she saw instead was a young man in a heavy if somewhat ratty brown overcoat. What really caught her eye was his ruffled blond hair, and then he was looking at her and she was drowning in blue.

Leah could feel the blood drain out of her face and a hand came up to cover her mouth, which was hanging open in shock. She watched with wide eyes as that lopsided smile slowly grew over his face.

Closing her mouth she took a few jerky steps, she saw nothing but his face. After years, she couldn't believe he was there. Leah refused to believe it until she could feel him under fingers which she soon got the chance to do as closed the remaining distance.

Leah slowly reached out a hand and instead of going through his shoulder like she expected, she felt solid warmth under her shaking fingers.

She studied his face, it was more scared than the last time she'd seen him and his eyes had a few more wrinkles that could only be gained by seeing the horrors of war, but he was there. There was no denying who he was.

"Jim." Leah breathed the flood of adrenaline making her voice shake.

"Yeah." He softly whispered, wrapping his arms around her and holding on for all he was worth.

"Hey, would you mind sitting down and talking to me over some coffee? I'm feeling a little low and we have a lot to catch up on." Jim murmured into her hair before pulling away to look at her with the bright blue eyes she'd missed so much.

Then they clouded a little as he caught sight of the ring, "Unless, you know, you'd rather not."

Leah growled, seriously even if he'd been missing for ten years, Jim wasn't allowed to be this dumb.

"It's your ring." She snapped whacking him upside the head.

"You moron," Leah continued almost affectionately.

"So does this mean that's a yes?" Jim grinned and oh how she'd forgotten how his face lit up when he smiled.

"Well have to talk about it." She tried to say stiffly, but couldn't fight her grin of relief.

He was actually here in the flesh, she had a second chance. They both did.

"So coffee?"

"I know just where we can go, but I'm off in an hour." Leah remembered, wincing.

"Go, I'll cover for you."

At the sound of Jenna's voice she turned around, seeing the tears in her smiling friend's eyes. Then Leah was acutely aware of the patients and most of the staff had seen their little reunion and she felt her face flush.

"Aww that's too cute Bowsy." Jim grinned and Leah sharply elbowed him in the ribs.

"Thanks Jenna." Leah murmured and quickly left, tugging Jim behind her.

They were barely out on the sidewalk before he yanked her around and was kissing her as if his very life depended on it. It just might have, because for her it was like she could finally breathe again.

They never made it to the coffee shop, instead she took him back to her apartment where they sat on the couch, his strong arms around her and her skilled hands comforting him. Jim talked of the war, glazing over details, telling her it was too graphic for her to hear, which was when she reminded him she worked at a hospital, but he still said no and she respected it. He told her a little about his days in a prison camp and the struggle to get back home once he was free.

Leah told him about keeping his letters, and the look on his face as he fingered the papers in the box caused tears to spring into her eyes.

She looked away after his soft and awed, "You actually kept them."

"Of course I kept them. What else was I supposed to do with them?" she asked clearing her throat.

Then she found herself being kissed within an inch of her life.

Then she told him about her parents and the marriage and soon followed divorce. Jim had actually growled a little when she'd mentioned that her husband had been cheating on her, and she felt some small gratification though she told him no he couldn't 'hunt the bastard' down'. She told him about her career, his ring and even all of those anniversaries.

They fell asleep wrapped around each other on the couch, and Leah dreamed of an endless waltz, with a boy with blond hair and the brightest blue eyes.

Two weeks later and what little Jim owned was unpacked in her apartment and they were able to spend their nights frolicking in her queen sized bed and morning lazy kissing until Leah's alarm clock reminded her she did have job to get to.

Eleven years from the day she'd found out Jim was MIA, he proposed, right in the hospital lobby in front of God and everyone else.

When she asked why, he told her she needed a good memory for that day and after all he wasn't dead and never had been. Leah just rolled her eyes flicked him in the forehead and reminded him he had vaccinations coming up next week.

The wedding was a rather large affair, that was her fault for letting her aunt help with the planning, and was held in a church back home. Her entire family came out of the woodwork and even a few of Jim's close Army buddies came. Leah didn't remember much from the Wedding or the reception, just the look on Jim's face as the doors opened and the organ began playing Here Comes The Bride. The vows were a pleasant blur and then they were off to their honeymoon.

The window was open allowing a late night breeze in, and Leah swore the moonlight reflected off of Jim's crystal blue eyes as he eyed her hungrily.

The stars spun slowly above them, laying out the future to come.

Epilogue:

"Grandma! Grandpa!" a little boy yelled charging through the living room and attaching himself to his Grandfather's legs.

"Hey there sport how was school?" The old man asked grunting as he lifted the four year old up.

"It was fun. Grandma!" the little boy twisted around to face the old woman standing next to him.

"Yes Seth?"Leah asked the laugh lines around her mouth deepening as she smiled.

"I made an A on my test!" Seth crowed, lifting up a piece of paper that had a large red A circled on it.

He proudly showed it off to his grandparents.

"That's great Seth." Jim said, ruffling the mop of brown hair.

"Hey."Seth whined, trying to get away.

"Ahh you're not getting away so easily!" Jim grinned evilly before blowing a raspberry against the boy's neck. Seth broke out in giggles, squirming around.

Leah watched in amusement, after all these years Jim still acted like such a child, even when he was complaining about his old war injuries hurting in cold weather.

"Mom? Dad?" The voice of their son made Leah and Jim look up and Seth crow "Daddy!"

Jim put Seth down and he promptly attached himself to his father's legs.

"Hey NAte." Jim greeted grinning.

He walked over and ruffled his son's not quite blond but not quite brown hair.

"How's Beth doing?" Jim asked.

"She's at a check-up in town right now and she ordered me to come and see you guys."

"Ahh you gotta be careful about those women, just look how your mother treats me." Jim sighed.

Leah sent him a pointed glare over the rims of her bifocals.

"I'd watch it dad. You have to sleep in the same bed with her every night." Their son laughed, and it reminded her so much of Jim's, their boy even had his father's blue eyes.

"And you're having another kid? Jeez I feel old." Jim groaned, rubbing his back.

"You guys had three kids and I hate to break it to you but you are old." Nate pointed out.

Leah watched their exchange with fondness, her life felt complete.

Life might not always work out with a fairytale ending, but sometimes it did.

R&R! Otherwise I won't know what you think!


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